Blau Resort Punta Reina, Porto Cristo, Mallorca **

Since we had walked through this hotel on previous vacations to Mallorca, we decided to book it, together with a flight. Our package was breakfast + dinner and since it came with a flight it was actually quite reasonable.

ArrivingSince we needed to be flexible during our visit, we opted for a rental car at the airport (much cheaper than at a hotel). Parking at the hotel is tight, the "guests only" lot is packed to the hilt every evening. Keep in mind that our travel was not high-season - I expect that parking there during high season is nearly impossible. We alway found a spot somewhere on the side of the road leading to or from reception, but this, too was sometimes difficult during our near-off-season visit.

The ladies at reception are very friendly, the men we dealt with were all rather curt or even rude. Our room was 1122, which actually gives you a sliver of ocean view if you look out over the balcony divisions. Luckily, it was a quiet room; there is a row of rooms on the hallway to the bar, with no door to block any sound - I would have asked to switch rooms had we ended up there.

While you can get down to reception using a long ramp from the drive, I found no way to get to the elevators without using stairs. Apparently, Blue doesn't cater to people in wheelchairs.

RoomThe room was large enough and had two single beds pushed together. The mattresses were a complete disaster - extremely hard and you could literally feel the springs inside. My wife's mattress actually squeaked if she moved around. Very uncomfortable.

There is a smallish TV with a jumble of channels, some with an acceptable picture quality. Not worth watching (you're not there to watch TV anyway).

There are outlets available at the desk as well as the side of each bed. The A/C was rather too warm and apparently didn't feed fresh air into the room, as the air was like downtown Manhatten during rushhour every morning. The AC cuts out if you open the sliding door to the balcony.

The bathroom is functional, though the shower didn't stay up (I had to wedge a hair pin into the holder to keep it from sliding down) and the tub is relatively narrow and bounded by a shower curtain. Get used to that curtain to fondle your backside while you rinse down - yuck. The sink was set back extremely far, i.e. there were a good 30cm of table from the sink to the edge. Very uncomfortable when brushing your teeth or washing your hands, as you basically have to lean into the table in order to do so.

Air was apparently not exchanged at all in the bathroom - the air in there was usually even worse than in the room.

Restaurant & FoodThe restaurant turned out to be your typical, loud, bustling mass-tourism food place. Hot and cold foods were in separate rooms, which has advantages but also disadvantages. Food quality was quite good, though for breakfast the folks making fried eggs and pancakes weren't fast enough to fill demand. Forget having an omelette made to order!

Most fruit was fresh and there was always a guy making up pieces of it in one corner. Unfortunately, often the melon pieces were cut too close to the rind, making for frequent pulling of woody pieces out of your mouth.

Even though we were not there for high season, the restaurant was filled to the brink and so loud that conversing normally at a table anywhere just didn't work. We ended up just taking breakfast in the hotel and eating out for lunch and dinner as eating at the hotel simply wasn't a pleasant experience.

Also, this is the first of many tourist hotels I've been at where they expected you to bring your guest pass to meals and they would actually cross off the meal taken. Join the rest of the family 5 minutes later? Probably an issue… better all go together every time. I don't understand the need for this type of control.

Since we had a breakfast/dinner package, drinks were not included. Drinks at the bar were a bit high price-wise, but still acceptable. The restaurant is obviously not used to catering to non-AI guests, as getting and paying for a glass of wine turned out to be a bit of a nuisance.

WifiThe hotel offers free wifi - this always worked in the lobby / bar area, though the speed was spotty most of the time. Sometimes, we had good connectivity in the room, sometimes none at all.

SummaryAll in all, staying at the Blue wasn't a pleasant experience, and I doubt I would do it again under most circumstances. Also, I don't plan on recommending the hotel to anyone I value as a friend.